THE NEW YORKER. JUNE 15. 1998 62 work." She knows he used that word because her word for it is play. Boyfriends come and go, but the other men have remaIned loyal through the years. "Do you see yourself doing more of this, or less?" I asked her. "I can't do this forever. I get even more selective, more specific about what I want to do and what I don't want to do. There are people who call, and I say, 'I think you're a great person, but I just can't do this session.' This year, I have been cleaning house." he dropped. I was scared that he was dead. Then she slaps him really hard and does C.ER. on him. And he comes back" The man was groggy and disori- ented from having fainted, but when he realized where he was he said, "O.K., let's go." He wanted more. "1 couldn't believe it. I ended up put- ting my gloves on and beating the fuck out of him. 'I hate you for almost dy- ing!' I don't think he was happy with his black eye. His nose was bleeding. His lip was split. His nose was across his face. I loved it. Mterward, I made him take us out for sushi." I asked her to explain. "Mutual reciprocity-real fucking. I love that, too. I also like playing. J like slaves. I recommend both-real sex and role play. But in my dungeon real sex is forbidden." It occurred to me to ask whether these men ever begged to make love to her, just jolly, jig-jig, cork-in-a-bottle- style sex. She was shocked. "They wouldn't dare. Are you kidding?" She made a fierce face at me. "They'd be dead. That's a line they'd never cross." "Still, your boyfriend knows about this. And it must be difficult to go from this-a man being bound up and humiliated-to meet your boyfriend, have a drink, and so forth. Then go to bed? Is that transition difficult?" "It depends on the day. Mostly, it's a problem because of the phone ringing off the hook-people being very needy. I had to take the cell phone to bed one time, because I was expecting a call, and that was a big problem wIth my boyfriend. 1 have always done whatever I wanted to do. That was the first time I realized I had to be considerate of I N some ways, words hold much more power for Nurse Wolf-and for some of her clients-than any whip. She has her Scheherazade stories The most extreme examples involve some of her longest-term clients- those whom she calls "cannibals." One is a man with a Hansel-and-Gretel fan- tasy. With Nurse Wolf's assistance, he fantasizes about being a little boy and being cooked alive in a big pot. His fantasy is full of folktale ornamenta- tion: the shadowy cottage, the dark woods, the witch's kitchen. At a cer- tain point, the man is eaten, and the prospect of being chewed arouses him sexually. Another man sees her to relate stories of cannibalism that would not be out of place in the later, weirder epi- sodes of "The Arabian Nights." Nurse Wolf and he are in charge of a tropical island. Young wom- en are abducted and taken there to be fed, fattened, and prepared for a luaù. "Is it a particular type of woman he's after?" I asked. "He's very specific. They have to be between eighteen and twen- ty. They have to have a good shape. One day, he brought a tape measure, and he measured my arm and said, 'Like this.' " Sometimes that cannibal brings books to the session, with titles like ' addin's Slave Farm," about girls who are kidnapped by cannibals. The preparation of the meal is more important to him than the eating. "We trick them," Nurse Wolf says. "They think they're going to be sex slaves. They are very carefully groomed. They are kept in cells O NE day, we were in the restaurant of the Mark Hotel, having lunch and laughing over a menu item de- scribed as "weakfish." Nurse Wolf was saying she certainly didn't want that. She was dressed in her working clothes-a short leather skirt, a pretty blouse, Doc Martens, and a heavy chain around her neck-and there were styl- ish young women in the place who were dressed similarly, for this was the fasluon, but probably those other women were not going to spend the afternoon dressing a banker as a sissy maid and breaking canes on an executive's but- tocks: two sessions on Nurse Wolf's agenda. In giggling about weakfish, Nurse Wolf used the expression "real sex." " someone. Her boyfriend once got turned off because after they'd spent a nice day together she had to go to the studio for a session. He said, "You're going to " "'- -' .:.:.. .::øt :- :. ...:--::::: :":: :: .-.. %"': . ...:-.*=%%.v :""'-:.....:.::=õ- :;.: -- "No one ever went broke making a prqftt. "